Tennessee Monkey Bill

According to the Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis on Friday Feb.
23, 1996, an editorial on page A8 states that the state Senate Education
Committee voted 8-1 for a bill that would allow local school boards to fire
any teacher who taught evolution as a fact.
The name of the bill was not given, nor the date the vote was taken.
The editorial was titled "Laugh's On Us".
The editorial was accompanied by a large cartoon by Ramirez of man
evolving from an ape and then devolving back to a monkey with a brief case
labeled monkey bill. A must for most laboratory doors.
It would be instructive to read this new bill and the bill that
sparked the Dayton monkey trial in 1925, side by side. By the way, that
1925 bill was not repealed until 1973.
--
David R. Nelson
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biochemistry
University of Tennessee, Memphis